Cellphone jamming devices are not legal in SA. Yet some are already being sold and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has been using them illegally, hearings on whether the devices should be legalised discovered yesterday.
Perhaps it was the fact that the NIA turned out to be using cellphone jamming devices illegally that led to the SA Police Service`s submission to the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) taking place behind closed doors.
Although the last slot on ICASA`s all-day public hearings on cellphone jamming devices was given to the police and held in camera, it is believed that the elite Scorpions unit and the NIA were also represented.
Earlier in the day, MTN, an operator partially owned by the government, disclosed that the NIA was using what everyone agrees is illegal technology.
The three cellphone operators, Vodacom, MTN and Cell C, were unanimous in their condemnation of jamming, the reasons given to justify it and the techniques used to implement it.
In a technical presentation aimed at showing why it felt so strongly about the matter, MTN used three real-world examples of jamming it had encountered. These took place at a conference at the St George`s Hotel on the R21 between Pretoria and the Johannesburg airport, at the "Glass Palace" building in Bloemfontein and at a site it identified as "NIA - Pretoria", the NIA`s headquarters.
The lawyers of all parties, including companies that develop such devices, and ICASA agreed that supplying, owning and operating jammers is illegal under the Telecommunications Act and could carry a R500 000 fine, two years in prison or both.
During June and April, MTN says, it detected a jammer in use at the NIA building. While the device was operational, it recorded a sharp increase in the number of dropped calls users experienced in two adjacent cells. When it was turned off, the dropped call ratio returned to normal levels.
The effect, while sharp and certainly annoying to the cellphone users in the area, was not as bad as that caused by the St George`s device. There, MTN says, dropped calls peaked at more than 400 per hour while the jammer spilled interference over the fast-moving cars on the highway. The normal level is less than 20 dropped calls per hour.
Yet the cellphone operators do not begrudge the NIA the right to use blocking devices, although they shudder at the thought that the public may have access too.
In its submission, Vodacom said the NIA was the only organisation it had no firm objection to having access to the technology. MTN conceded that the Scorpions and NIA might need to use jamming, but argued that its use should be limited. Cell C said the use by security forces could prove an exception but the issue would require further technical consideration.
Those who will vs those who won`t
At the other end of the spectrum, a virtual cold war broke out between the companies supplying jammers in the local market and those that assured ICASA they would never consider anything as reprehensible.
"We were shocked to hear that these devices are being sold," said Justine White, a lawyer representing developer Ellectrix-C. "We are categorically not involved in such activity."
She suggested that ICASA, if it did not proceed with legal action against such providers, at least should not provide them with licences to continue to operate if it decided to legalise jamming.
Cellblock SA, the only other jammer to make a presentation, said it had never sold a unit despite being confident that it had designed a winner.
Other companies at the hearings had another story to tell. One representative said his foreign principal had offices in SA for two years and had sold many units, with the police and universities among its biggest clients.
Ultimately the jamming manufacturers fell to squabbling about the various means of blocking a cellphone signal and who holds the patents to which version.
Although this could have done their cause no good, it is not clear that a united front would have made much difference with vehement opposition from all three operators, the Banking Council, a major vehicle tracking company and an expectation that the police would agree that jamming should be its sole domain.
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Cellphones: To jam, or not to jam?
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